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For part 7 of the Monster Squad art showcase I thought it would be fun to share a couple of awesome poster illustrations. This first is by Justin Erickson of Phantom City Creative for the Twitch Film Back to the 80s screening awhile back. I totally need a copy of this for Branded HQ…

Next up is that rad minimalist piece by Victor Santos for Camp Amento Krypton…

Though the theatrical release of The Monster Squad was an unfortunate failure (grossing around $3.8M against a estimated $12M budget in its two week big screen run), looking back I’m surprised that there wasn’t even a miniscule attempt to merchandise the film. Most of those decisions and all of that work typically comes in the year leading up to a movie’s release, and seeing how this was made at the apex of 80s era merch and branding when even films specifically aimed at adult (Robocop, Rambo II, and The Toxic Avenger) were getting toy lines, branded school supplies and lunchboxes. In my eyes The Monster Squad is a licensing goldmine. I mean there are great creatures to make action figures out of, there are a ton of catch phrases worthy of t-shirts, and they had a deal in place with both Burger King and Adidas, I mean come on, where are my BK Collector Glasses featuring the monsters or my navy blue satin Adidas jackets emblazoned with the Monster Squad logo?!? Speaking of Adidas, I love this Monster Squad tie-in poster that was used in shoe stores back in 1987. I wish I could get a better scan of it, but alas, this is not in my personal collection (I saw in on ebay years ago and stupidly passed on bidding…) I would kill to have this on my wall now…

Anyway, getting back to the point, in the years since the movie came out and the cult and fandom have been increasingly growing, we would eventually see a handful of products produced. The two main ones that spring to mind are both related to Stan Winston, Steve Wang and Matt Rose’s interpretation of the Creature, and both of which were high-end and limited releases that a lot of folks may have missed. The first one I want to highlight is an official model kit of the Gillman designed by Steve Wang and sold by Kaiyodo in Japan around the mid 90s…

Amazingly badass, this kit would look great on my shelf if I had the budget for buying such things. the original model was not painted and is made of solid resin. The example above was assembled and painted by Tom Gilliland (Sideshow Collectible’s creative director) and Don Rutherford and can be yours if you have $500 burning a hole in your pocket…

The next item is another resin model, this time a full, to scale bead bust of the Gillman sculpted by Jeremy Bohr for Black Heart a few years ago…

Speaking of the Gillman, back in 1988-89 we almost got an unofficial Monster Squad Gillman toy as a part of the doomed Mattel MaxFx line of Barbie doll-sized action figures. You may have seen the MaxFx Freddy Kruger figure that was eventually released, but basically the concept of the line was to have a standard human doll on whcih you could preform your own special effects horror makeover. The line was planned to be much larger than the figure or two that were eventually released before it disappeared from toy shelves, and part of that proposed line was a Creature From the Black Lagoon style figure that used the Monster Squad Gillman as it’s inspiration…

So, a few years ago Sara and a bunch of her artist friends worked on a short-lived site for selling their daily warm up sketches and inks. I loved this series she did of Monster Squad portraits for that project…

Just recently she revisted that concept and expanded it to feature all of the monsters and the Squad as part of a Portrait-a-Day sketch card project that she collected into a very neat mini art book!

By far though, my absolute favorite piece of Monster Squad artwork that Sara has produced is this amazing illustration and screenprint of the MS clubhouse…

What’s even cooler than that? Well that a copy of this got into director Fred Dekker’s hands!

That’s pretty damn bad ass Sara!

And today’s card is…

Since there was never any MS merchandise produced, specifically a Topps trading card set, I thought it would be fun to make a mini set of 80s-style digital trading cards for my favorite movie of all time. So come back each evening for Trick or Treats and collect them all!

Earlier in the month I shared a series of Monster Squad articles and interviews that appeared in the pages of Fangoria and Starlog magazine back in 1987, and as an addendum to that post I wanted to share a couple more vintage magazine articles that debuted after the film had already been released in the US. As much as I love reading “lead-up” articles and interviews it next to impossible to avoid that pervasive sense of optimism and awe that comes with what basically amounts to PR and publicity (both from the perspective of the interviewer and interviewee. ” Of course <insert current film> is the best work I’ve <insert director> ever done.” “Of course I loved ever second working with the actors, studio, marketing department, etc, etc, etc…” It’s the nature of the game.

The best thoughts on a film come later, after it’s been digested by the audience and there is some distance to reflect and see how things fit into the bigger picture. Unfortunately it’s rare that we get to see articles written from this perspective that aren’t 20 or 30 years or more out from the events; we hardly ever get articles written a year or two later that reflect on the success or failure, and if we do it’s usually only a postscript to the artist’s newest work. That’s why this Starburst Magazine article from volume 10, issue 12 published in 1988 is fascinating. Though the article is written to support the ’88 release of the film in the UK and Europe, Dekker has already felt the brunt of the US box office failure and is living in that moment of clarity with some distance and lessons learned. It doesn’t hurt that the magazine is mainly a UK publication because that probably freed him up a bit to air some grievances…

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Starburst Review

I also included a review there at the end that was originally published in Starburst Magazine vol. 10, issue 10 that is way more favorable than the critical reviews in the US.

I thought I’d also take a moment to share the cover article from Scary Monsters Magazine, issue 2 which was still being printed as a zine back in 1992. There’s not a lot to the article except some straight forward clinical listing of plot and who the cast and crew are, but it’s still a fun bit of Monster Squad ephemera…

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The only other 80s era magazine that I am aware of that definitely had a Monster Squad article was issue 10 of Samhian (again, I think this was out of the UK), but I have yet to snag a copy for my collection. Are there any other articles from the 80s that you folks are aware of?

Now for today’s trading card…

Since there was never any MS merchandise produced, specifically a Topps trading card set, I thought it would be fun to make a mini set of 80s-style digital trading cards for my favorite movie of all time. So come back each evening for Trick or Treats and collect them all!

Like most films there is some material that is in the script that just never makes to reality, or there are scenes filmed that either don’t work as well as intended or just don’t fit in the final film for one reason or another. Sometimes this material is gold and it leaves one scratching their head as to why it was cut or went unfilmed, and sometimes it’s pretty damn obvious why the stuff hit the cutting room floor or was marked out of the shooting script with thick black Sharpie markings. Either way, I tend to find wading through this stuff fascinating, and with The Monster Squad there is a lot of deleted scene gold to be mined, both in the script and on the screen. Today I’m gonna take a look at some of my favorite lost pieces of the story…

First things first, have you guys ever noticed that something feels a little off about the opening of the film? It opens with Dracula transforming and then admiring a coffin, and then, poof, he’s gonzo. The opening text narration that fills us in on Van Helsing’s attempt to rid the world of monsters, and that he, well, blew it. But how exactly did he blow it? What went wrong? What was the plan and why was Dracula nowhere to be found? Well, in the script there’s a bit more to this sequence than in the final theatrical cut, a bit that answers these questions…

HOLY CRAP that’s cool. Seriously, Van Helsing is a badass! But wait, why was this never shot, and what happens to Dracula after he’s staked? One thing at a time folks. First, believe it or not this sequence was shot and I have a picture that proves it…

How rad is that? Pretty damn rad if you ask me. So, after Dracula is dispatched by Van Helsing, the body is loaded onto a wagon and towed to the castle. The plan, as I gather from the script and context clues, is to find the (mostly) unprotected amulet (Dracula has it in his castle in the opening remember), have a virgin recite the incantation and to open a hole in Limbo that they can then chuck Dracula’s prone staked corpse into, along with any other monster that gets in their way. Simple enough right? Well, not so much, because you see, things didn’t go according to plan…

That’s right, Karl, though brave and great at slaying the ladies (of the vampire variety at least), goofs up and pulls the stake from Dracula to save his own neck, if only momentarily. Bad move. This scene was also filmed, and guess what? It survived the last 27 years and is on youtube! The scene was re-cut into the 2004 TNT TV presentation of the film…

Poor Karl. Well, this explains Dracula’s disappearance. Now tipped off to Van Helsing’s attack he got the fuck out of town. Back in the castle things fall apart as they do in the film, except in the script there is an army of zombies rising from the floor of the castle, not just the two or three in the actual film, and they are too much to ward off and everyone gets sucked into the vortex of Limbo. Cool huh?

The next deleted bit is kinda short but poignant and it involves a scene where Sean takes the majority of the silver bullets that Rudy made and before all hell breaks loose he reloads his dad’s gun with them. Guess he was afraid the Wolfman would be the first to take his father on. It also explains why Rudy only has one silver bullet when he faces down the Wolfman at the end of the film. This was all part of the Rock Until You Drop montage sequence…

This scene was also filmed and is on the 20th anniversary DVD and Bluray courtesy of Fred Dekker’s own archive…

The next lost bit was also filmed, as it’s the movie within a movie Groundhog Day Part 12, but the idea to focus on the film through Sean’s binoculars was sort of reduced in the final cut of the film. This deletion makes perfect sense to me because dwelling on the “movie within the movie” would have greatly taken away from the emotional resonance of Sean and his dad hanging out on the roof watching the drive-in which is one of the more touching moments in the film. But, if it were left intact you’d get a better idea of how Fred Dekker felt about modern horror at that time in the mid 80s…

This next segment that was cut from the film is a sequence that feels like it was ripped straight out of an episode of Scooby Doo complete with cantankerous villains wearing masks and goofy supernatural hypnotism. Except in the Monster Squad the Scooby Doo reveal is turned on its head. To set the stage, this occurs after the boys have made their way into the old abandoned mansion on Shadowbrook road in search of the amulet, right after the monster is taken out in the explosion but before the Wolfman Nard Kicking…

What’s this?!? A descendant of Van Helsing is in the mix? Holy shit…

Oh DAMN you old man ALUCARD! Kinda glad this bit was cut, and I have no idea if it was ever filmed or not. Recently heard Andre Gower on the Awesome 80s Podcast and he confirmed that this above sequence was indeed filmed, and holy crap, Liam Neeson played the part of the disguised Dracula “Stranger/Van Helsing” descendant. Too cool, but I wonder if anything from this sequence survives…

The last bit from the script, a segment that was filmed as well is a sweet moment at the end of the film. When all the dust has settled and Limbo has closed back up, Rudy FINALLY get’s the girl. There’s a bit in the Monster Squad Forever documentary with Ryan Lambert talking about this scene and how it’s a shame that it was cut because no one believes him. Well, here it is in the script…

You can see the lead up to this bit in a surviving deleted segment that was re-cut into the TV presentation that aired on TNT back in 2004…

Since there was never any MS merchandise produced, specifically a Topps trading card set, I thought it would be fun to make a mini set of 80s-style digital trading cards for my favorite movie of all time. So come back each evening for Trick or Treats and collect them all!

One of the pieces of my Monster Squad collection that I love the most is a copy of the script that Fred Dekker and Shane Black wrote back in 1986. I love digging into novelizations and scripts to see what differences there were between the initial idea and the final films, and since MS never had a novelization (a crime!), the script is the best source for variation and deleted scenes. The copy I have is dated July 30th, ’86 and is marked as the third draft…

From what I have pieced together via old Fangoria interviews, commentaries and DVD featurettes, the initial idea Dekker had was to pit the Little Rascals versus the Universal Monsters a la Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein. When he came up with the idea he was hip deep working on both Night of the Creeps and writing a script that would eventually become If Looks Could Kill, so even though he had studio interest in the concept, he took the ideas he’d written and handed them off to his college buddy Shane Black to take a stab at writing the script…

Black had been bombing out in his attempts to start his acting career, and he’s just sold a script about a phantom platoon in Vietnam, so he thought, what the hell and decided to sit down and write The Monster Squad. As an exercise he decided to write the script in the same voice and style as Dekker who had a unique outlook on scriptwriting that is very unconventional in the industry…

Basically Dekker liked to address “the audience” and producers in his scripts, including a ton of asides that not only describe the tone and setting, but give back-story and also predict the way people should react to the scenes. So reading a Dekker script is anything but dry! Here’s some examples of how he would do that..

I love how the duo describe EJ & Derek as kids who will grow up, get ugly and sell shitty used cars, or the way they invoke the popcorn munching excitement of the finale…

Anyway, Black’s first draft of the script was apparently amazingly ambitious where he threw in everything he and Dekker would want to see in an Our Gang Vs. Monsters movie regardless of the potential budget to bring these ideas to fruition. So for instance, in the opening of the movie when Van Helsing comes to vanquish Dracula he’s sailing in on zeppelins with an army of torch wielding villagers assaulting the castle. I’d love to get my hands on a copy of that original draft. The two then compared notes and then Dekker took a another pass at editing down and tightening the script and eventually the two agreed on the draft that I was able to procure.

At the end of the day what ended up in this third draft is very much what ends up on film, though there are a handful of deleted and alternate scenes that are pretty darn cool. Today I want to focus on some of the alternate versions of scenes and I’ll come back tomorrow and share a bunch of the cool deleted segments. So, in terms of alternate, I guess what I’m getting at is that some scenes played slightly different from script to film and were either slightly more intense or there were characters that end up slightly different from page to screen. For instance, Eugene was envisioned as a much more timid character, one that has “no business” being in a monster club as we see in the descriptive text from this deleted scene (alright, I’m including one deleted scene, but not because it’s particularly as a scene, it’s the descriptive stuff about Eugene that stuck out to me…)

So, as Sean alludes in the final film, the rest of the Squad ends up actually going to see Groundhog Day Part 12 at the drive-in and we get this short joky bit with the kids in Eugene’s father’s car. He’s described as wearing cutesy Pooh Bear PJs and is scared to death, which is not how he ultimately ends up coming across in the final film. From the Bedroom breakdown I did we can fully see that he’s a fan of some violent comic book characters (Dreadstar, the Punisher and Wolverine), and instead of Pooh Bear he prefers Robotech PJs. Not only that but nothing really seems to phase the kid outside of an actual monster hanging out in his closet or all hell breaking loose in the final sequence. I love how he dead pans to Sean that the “Creature stole my Twinkie…” or that “Mummy came in my house…” The Eugene described in the script would have tendered his resignation to the club as soon as the Mummy shuffled out of his window that night…

Another deviation from script to screen was the whole naked photo of Patrick’s sister business. In the film, aside from Rudy ogling her through a camera set up in the clubhouse, the whole thing plays off as a perfect accident as Frankenstein’s Monster accidentally snaps a photo of her undressing that Rudy later has processed and they use it to eventually blackmail her into being their virginal incantation reader for the final showdown. In the script there is no accident about acquiring that photo. In fact, it’s all part of the plan…

This stuff plays way more into the Our Gang origins of the Squad as they try their damnedest to get a photo of Patrick’s sister naked…

It’s eventually Horace that snaps the picture as the rest of the gang has to literally drag a horny monster away from Patrick’s house!

There are also a lot of sequences in the script that are way more intense than they would eventually end up in the finished film, particularly during the final fight in the town square. For instance, in the bit where Horace faces off against the Gillman, in the final film he gets trapped between the monster and the locked door of the town magazine shop (where EJ & Derek are hiding.) Horace of course realizes he can’t run and blows the creature away. But in the script this plays out a bit different as he uses the shotgun to first decimate the glass door of the shop in one last ditch effort to get away, and also to take his anger out on the bullies…

I get why this was toned down, I mean the idea of one kid holding a shotgun on another is a little crazy, but man would I have loved to see EJ pee his pants…

A lot of the sequences involving Dracula in that final fight play out more intensely too, including the face-off between him and the Monster…

This sequence not only has Dracula hit so hard that he flies up and impales himself on a large cross (instead of an iron fence spear), but it also reveals that the Monster was more mortally wounded (is that possible?) in the old house explosion. It describes him as having his face caved in! Ouch! Bo-gus, indeed.

Lastly today I wanted to point to just how brutal the final fight between Sean and Dracula was scripted…

I mean holy crap! That is a fight.

Tomorrow I’ll be back with a look at a bunch of deleted scenes from the script, but until then, here’s today’s trading card!

For part 6 of the Monster Squad art showcase I thought it would be fun to share a couple of different takes on iconic aspects of the film. First up is this awesome 8-bit inspired painting by Jude Buffum that showcases everyone’s favorite nard kicking moment…

To play off the fun 8-Bit NES style of Jude’s painting above is this fun mock-up of what a Monster Squad NES game would should have looked like by the swell purveyor of Culturally Significant.com, M.E. Strange! Check him out for the awesome month of Ghostbusters throughout October!

Next up is this really neat reimagining of the original Craig Nelson poster that has since become the official DVD cover art of the current Olive Films release of The Monster Squad on DVD by Corlen Kruger…

For part 5 of the Monster Squad art showcase I thought it would be fun to share a couple of really cool group shots. First up is this neat illustration by Jacob Chabot featuring the heroes. Love Jacob’s style and I’ve love to see his take on a Monster Squad animated series…

Since there was never any MS merchandise produced, specifically a Topps trading card set, I thought it would be fun to make a mini set of 80s-style digital trading cards for my favorite movie of all time. So come back each evening for Trick or Treats and collect them all!

Not long after I left the theater when I caught my first screening of The Monster Squad the film began to worm its way into my psyche in some strange ways. One of the most notable is in how I choose to collect certain things, specifically monster memorabilia. Since 1987 I’ve become a huge fan of the original Universal Horror films and own practically all of them on DVD and love finding variations of the monsters in any form of be it toys, soda cans, ephemera, or what ever. But when I collect it’s hard not to try and put together a set of the monster rogues gallery from The Monster Squad. I partially blame the iconic Mount Rushmore of monsters painting that Craig Nelson did (which you can see in this month’s Branded Halloween banner), but honestly no collection of any one iteration of monsters is “complete” for me unless at least the five main characters are there. It’s a sickness really, but still I embrace it. Here’s a sample of some of the toys in my collection that reflect this…

When Lego started issuing their blind bag minifigs a few years ago I was super stoked to see them including some classic monster figures. Not only was it cool to see my favorite genre represented, but as the sets progressed there were more and more popping up and my secret wish of having a set of Monster Squad Lego was coming to fruition. Of course, for a while there were only four of the five monsters I wanted available. Like in most monster toy sets the Gillman was noticeably absent and just to make myself feel a little better I ended up sticking in a weird mutant fish creature Lego from the Atlantis set to fill that hole. Then three years ago the collection was finally “officially” completed when Lego began releasing their Monster Fighters sets and one of the first to hit toy shelves was a small Gillman play set.

Though I completely missed out on Monster In My Pocket figures the first time back in 1990 (and the M.U.S.C.L.E. figure craze that spawned MiMP), I have since been scouring junk bins and yard sales looking for a handful of figures that would represent The Monster Squad for me. For years I was short one minifig, the Wolfman/werewolf, but I lucked out recently and the super gracious and badass Stacey Rader happened to have an extra in her collection and she helped my monster team feel complete!

Though the above sets are pretty darn awesome, there are a number of collections that I have that are still short one monster, but I’m always holding out hope that I’ll one day be able to fill in the gap. Like I mentioned it’s almost always a variation on the Creature From the Black Lagoon Gillman, and sometimes I find a fun way to find a substitute for him like in this set of monster Smurfs that were issued five or six years ago…

Around 7 or 8 years ago there were a series of Universal knock-off toys that were popping up at dollar stores around the country that I fell in love with. Again though, no Gillman…

Like I mentioned above, my collecting isn’t just limited to toys, for a number of years I was also collecting monster themed soda cans and for the past 6 years or so the 7-Up company has been putting out a set of monster mini-cans for Halloween. But who was always absent? Yup, the Gillman…

After years of collecting, dusting old cans and worrying that one day I’d find a pool of soda all over my shelves when one of the cans sprung a leak (as my friend Paxton has said, it’s not if, buy when), I finally decided to take a bunch of pictures and then empty and chuck the cans. Of course the very next Halloween we finally get a Gillman can…

This also effects some of the ephemera in my collection. I love trading cards and stickers, and “the sickness” has invaded these collections too, like these Universal Monster trading cards that were issued in a six card packs by Impel in 1991. I stumbled upon these in an antique store last year and loved that I had an “instant” Monster Squad Monster collection…

Sure, The Bide is butting in on the Frankenstein’s Monster cards, but it’s close enough. I also have a set of the ’91 Pepsi monster cards…

Man, the monster push in 1991 by Universal was awesome and I wish they’d do that again during another Halloween soon.

Last but not least on the trading card front is this collection of some of my favorite Garbage Pail Kids stickers. Of course there isn’t a Gillman GPK, so I had to improvise…

These collections were also a bit of the inspiration that drove me to making my own set of Monster Squad Topps-style trading cards for this year’s Countdown, and by the end of this month everyone will be able to have a digital set of those monster cards!

Speaking of stickers, I’m also always on the lookout for some neat monster stickers, especially if all five of my favorites are represented. The really swell artist Sabrina Parolin illustrated and printed up these swell Monster Squad stickers a few years ago…

Like I said, this weird collecting is a monster sickness, a Five Monster sickness…

Now, onto today’s trading card…

Since there was never any MS merchandise produced, specifically a Topps trading card set, I thought it would be fun to make a mini set of 80s-style digital trading cards for my favorite movie of all time. So come back each evening for Trick or Treats and collect them all!

Yesterday I took a look at the main US poster artwork for The Monster Squad (painted by Craig Nelson) as well as some alternate roughs that were potential candidates. Today I’m going to take a look at the rest of the posters that were released around the globe. Let’s start by taking a look at a super rare US black & white one-sheet that used a Wanted Poster theme and seems very much in line with the Nelson concept rough with the suction dart…

Straight away this poster seems like a misfire on a couple of levels as it doesn’t feature an image of Duncan Regehr as Dracula, instead a wide-eyed model with a severe widow’s peak. Eschewing Regehr is bad enough, but invoking the vampire’s widow’s peak was actually something the production was striving to avoid as that is an aspect of “Dracula” that I believe is copyright Universal Pictures. I know that Stan Winston’s team worked hard to avoid the Universal-owned aspects to the monsters so it’s strange to see it pop up so randomly in the marketing. It might also speak to the rarity of this poster as it potentially infringed on copyright. That being said, I do think the idea is pretty neat, especially when geared towards the younger audience that the movie appeals to. I love the distinguishing characteristics of the finger prints too, in particular the weird detail that Dracula’s visage is embedded in his. Though something that’s a little questionable is the Statutory-Wrap pun on the Mummy side of the poster. I mean, that is funny, but wow, a little much for a tween film I think. I wonder if there’s a variation of this poster with the rest of the monsters? I’d love a set of wanted posters for all five honestly. For the record, these were posted in subways and on bus stops around the country in 1987…

Alright, leaving the US, let’s take a trip all the way on the other side of the globe, way down under in Australia…

This poster was painted by Aussie artist Brian Clinton and is one of my favorite alternate posters for the film. He’s also done work on films like Crocodile Dundee and Razorback. Aside from the spot on likenesses and the inclusion of the ENTIRE Squad (yes, Phoebe is a member in good standing), I really love the way he added the monsters as shadows at the bottom of the frame. Granted, Rudy is missing his rolled up pants legs and the Frankenstein Monster’s bolts are back on the neck (another Universal flourish), but the concept is rad. This Poster also features a logo variation that ditches the italicized, rounded mini “The” in favor of keeping the work in a consistent font. Also, the image of the Squad here was taken from some of the promo photos that were done to market the film…

Now let’s take a trip over to Europe, specifically Germany and take a gander at that poster…

In the tradition of never featuring the entire Squad on any one poster, this German design nixes Patrick and Phoebe in favor of Pete the dog. Not a bad deal for Pete! I also love that this one features the vampire brides and is one of the few posters that nixes Dracula in favor of the other four monsters. I will say that the poster features a bunch of spoilers, whether it’s the Mummy unraveling, Horace wielding a shotgun (okay, he’s holding it in the Australian poster too), or Frankenstein’s monster waving goodbye as he’s sucked into Dumbo, er, Limbo. Still though, one of the better international posters. Also, now that I’m thinking about it, I wonder how the segment of the film where Patrick’s sister sucks at reading/speaking the language works in the German dub?

Hanging around Europe for a bit, let’s take a stroll over to Italy, home of the weirdest and, um, sexiest Monster Squad poster of them all…

Sooo, the artwork on this poster was either re-purposed from another project or the artist/distributor didn’t give two flips for accuracy. Actually, in all seriousness, I wonder if this design was intentional in that “illustrates” the horror comedy tone of the film. There are a lot of posters out of the 60s that are similarly wacky but are more about conveying tone than story. It’s just a guess. Either way, WHOA, look at them hogans on the Bride! Ha cha cha. So what if they substituted the Bride of Frankenstein for his Monster? Also, the keen observer will notice the silhouette of the Gillman in the background on the bottom right, so the gang’s all there (kind of.) Last, thank goodness they’re doing the Rockettes dance number because that pants-less Wolfman leg is saving us all from having to look at his wolf dork.

How about we head back to western Europe and check out the poster that hails from Spain…

This poster wins the award for the most dynamic perspective hands down. I love the way the artist decided to zoom up and away from the action, highlighting the monster’s attack on the town as almost a western-style standoff! If you look closely all the elements are there from the clock tower (this scene was filmed on the Warner Brothers back lot) to the Squad (you can see four smaller fold out in front of the townspeople that I assume are Sean, Horace, Rudy and Patrick), as well as Scary German Guy’s truck in the back left (where I assume he, Eugene and Phoebe are milling about.) All in all a really neat design…

How about we dip back into the weird and cross back over the Atlantic to take a peek at the poster from Mexico…

Probably the most colorful poster, to a level of gaudiness that even the Italian poster doesn’t achieve, it’s still only about 80% off model so Italy still wins on that front. I find it fascinating that the artist took suck pains to accurately depict Duncan Regehr as Dracula, but then threw the idea of avoiding Universal copyrights out with the bathwater by casting Boris Karloff as the Monster. This is also the first poster to work in publicity stills, which I think is kinda neat. FYI, if you need the tagline to the film translated into Spanish, it’s up top. Also, The Squadron of the Monsters sounds like a movie that I need to see post haste!

For this next poster let’s hop over to the UK for our first re-purposing of Craig Nelson’s US art…

The UK marketing campaign is sort of like the US one on steroids, what with their amped up logo and all the little flourishes they added to Nelson’s artwork (the lightning around Dracula’s hearse, the red eyes on the monsters and having the headlights of the car blazing.) I also love that they added the logo to Horace’s shirt. Can’t quite make out the word they added to Patrick’s shirt (Rams?) though. Speaking of artwork reuse, let’s hop on over to Asia and check out a couple posters, the first from Korea…

This one features both the Spanish poster and a chunk from the American one as well as utilizing a still of the Wolfman in mid-transformation. I love that the yellow bat in the logo is the same bat from one of the alternate US logos (that bat also pops up int he logo of the Mexican poster too…)

The second Asian poster and final one that I have is the one from Japan. Unfortunately the image is shit quality as I’ve only ever seen it pop up on ebay from time to time and all the sellers just use the same image that’s floating around the internets. Yes! Thanks to Michael Jones at My Two Yen Worth for providing the kanji of the title (ドラキュリアン) that enabled me to find a much better quality version of the Japanese poster!!! Also he’s doing a rad Halloween Countdown that is from a uniquely Japanese perspective, so check out his site!

Basically a retread of the US poster with a million and a half font flourishes. At least the bat pops up again in the kanji at the bottom…

So there you have it, all of the posters that I am aware of for The Monster Squad across the globe. Which one is your favorite?